I observed that there were some playgrounds, and some seating areas placed among the tall tenement buildings. I saw paved basketball courts (often with tattered nets) and a set of swings here and there. However, as we drove by the tenement areas, I saw very few children playing on the swings or young men and women raising up and down the basketball court. Most importantly, I didn’t see anyone “hanging Around” even though it was a Saturday morning when most of the Bronx citizens had ample free time.
There was none of the sociopetal hanging out at the corner—for there was no corner. Folks didn’t gather at the nearby drug store or grocery store, for these stores didn’t exist. They were replaced years ago by supermarkets and super drug stores located two bus stops away from the tenements.
Fully absent where any vendors on the street selling fish, mangos or a special locally made sausage. These vendors had nowhere to work (no streets) and food safety laws prevented them from operating anyway. I wondered where the children, young adults and older adults congregate—or do they congregate. Where were these folks? Should I have found a way to peer into the windows of their apartment. Were they watching TV. Maybe they were absorbed virtually with real and artificially generated characters on the Internet.
Robeert Moses may have had good intentions’ however, there is compelling evidence to suggest that his intentions were not always pure. Even with good intentions, the Moses’ dream of a clean, carefully planned city seems never to have been realized. There are antiseptically clean and carefully controlled cities such as Geneva, Switzerland and Singapore; however, the Bronx doesn’t belong on this short list. Instead, I have concluded that this urban setting is more of a stony nightmare than a liberating, realized Moses dream.
I was struck by another image as we passed the tenements and began our journey across the bridge to Manhattan. This image emanated from the many billboards that “graced” the Bronx and Manhattan skyline. A large number of them (I quit counting after fifty) were marketing legal services. Everyone and their brother were hocking their judicial prowess—often litigating injury settlements or divorce settlements. My surprise might have been nothing more than the usual expectations that legal services are usually offered in a more “professional” and less ostentatious manner.
